Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations, a syndicated columnist at Bloomberg, and the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (named by Wall Street Journal as one of best books to read during a financial crisis). She has written for The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, where she was an editorial board member, as well as for the New Yorker, Fortune, National Review, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs. A sought after keynote speaker, she has given a wide range of talks about the economy and the historical perspective of the Great Depression at corporations, financial institutions, universities, and historical societies.
Shlaes has appeared on PBS's News Hours with Jim Lehrer, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Fox News' Glenn Beck, ABC's Good Morning America, Charlie Rose, CNBC's Kudlow and Kramer, contributes to Public Radio International's Marketplace, and appears frequently on Bloomberg radio. She is a trustee of the German Marshall Fund and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Forgotten Man is part of a three-part history of the Twentieth Century, and has been widely praised by prominent figures such as George F. Will, Harold Evans, Newt Gingrich, Arthur Levitt, Mark Helprin, Peggy Noonan, Paul Volcker, and in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, and The National Review. Paul Johnson raved: "Amity Shlaes, who has established herself as a leading historian of 20th Century finance, has now produced her eagerly awaited analysis of the Great Depression. It shows how inept government intervention turned a necessary market correction into an economic catastrophe and prolonged it into a decade of misery."
Shlaes is an award-winning journalist. In 2002, she was co-winner of the Frederic Bastiat Prize, a new international prize for free-market journalism. In 2003, she served as the J.P. Morgan Fellow for economics and finance at the American Academy in Berlin. Shlaes has twice been a finalist for the Loeb, business journalism's most prestigious prize.
Shlaes graduated magna cum laude from Yale and studied at the Free University in Berlin on a DAAD fellowship following college. Yale named her to its "Who's Been Blue," list of most distinguished alumni. She lives with her family in New York.
Praise for Amity Shlaes & The Forgotten Man:
"Amity Shlaes spoke on a topic that could not have been more timely. She delivered an engaging, lively, and informative lecture. Her interest in us made this a very successful event. Our students, faculty, and neighbors and friends of the college who visited with us on the day of her presentation appreciated her novel perspectives. They enjoyed hearing from insights she has gained through a very interesting career." -- Leon Tabak, Department of Computer Science, Cornell College
"Amity Shlaes is among the most brilliant of the young writers who are transforming American financial journalism." -- Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times
"Amity Shlaes not only manages to keep you wide awake, she also sets your blood to boiling. Even if you don't always agree with her conclusions, she defines the debate over what we ought to do and gets you thinking constructively about the problems she identifies." -- The New York Times
"If the spectacle of modern Washington makes you wince, and if you wonder how that city came to be such an unseemly maelstrom of grasping factions, this book explains the present by precisely locating its genesis in the past. In 1936, to be precise, President Franklin Roosevelt then accurately boasted that he had fashioned a 'new relationship between government and people.' Americans just now need what Amity Shlaes has brilliantly supplied, a fresh appraisal of what the New Deal did and did not accomplish. She demonstrates that it did not bring about economic recovery, but it did invent modern American politics - the systematic and unending creation of interest groups dependent on government benefits. And she recognizes heroes - Wendell Willkie, for one - who, thanks to her, are unsung no more. " -- George F. Will
"A well-written and stimulating account of the 1930s and its often dubious orthodoxies. . . Ms. Shlaes rightly reminds us of the harmful effect of Rooseveltian activism and class-warfare rhetoric."
-- Wall Street Journal
"Amity Shlaes serves up the Great Depression as you've never known it - challenging conventional wisdom, telling a gripping story of the triumph of the American spirit and the folly of big government." -- National Review
"A remarkable book that really brings into focus how the American tradition of emphasizing productivity and the work ethic became replaced with a new left-wing model of wealth redistribution. . . The Forgotten Man is a brilliant recounting of the values that had worked spectacularly in making America the most successful country in the world prior to 1930. . . A very important book." -- Newt Gingrich
"I could not put this book down. Ms. Shlaes's timely chronicle of a fascinating era reads like a novel and brings a new perspective on political villains and heroes - few of whom turn out to be as good or bad as history would have us believe." -- Arthur Levitt
"With cool analysis enlivened by vivid vignettes in a compelling narrative, Amity Shlaes retrieves the epithet stolen and turned on its head by Franklin Roosevelt. The Forgotten Man is an incisive and controversial history of the Great Depression that challenges much of the received wisdom and does it with brio and scholarship. Amity Shlaes takes no prisoners." -- Harold Evans, author of The American Century
"Though it moves with the speed and fascination of a work by Frederick Lewis Allen, The Forgotten Man offers an understanding of the era's politics and economics that may be unprecedented in its clarity. Seldom has such a substantive work been such a delight to read. Were John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman to spend a century or two reconciling their positions so as to arrive at a clear view of the Great Depression, this would be it." -- Mark Helprin
"The Forgotten Man is revisionist history at its best - full of fresh insights, undogmatic judgments, and illuminating observations. Shlaes's account of The Great Depression goes beyond the familiar arguments of liberals and conservatives to make a truly original contribution. And it's an awfully good read." -- William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard
"The realities and myths of the Great Depression have influenced more than a generation of American policies and politics. Amity Shlaes's fast-paced review of the decade helps enormously in putting it all in perspective." -- Paul Volcker
"The Forgotten Man is an epic and wholly original retelling of a dramatic and crucial era. There are many sides to the 1930's story, and this is the one that has largely been lost to history. Thanks to Amity Shlaes, now it's been re-found." -- Peggy Noonan
"Entertaining, illuminating, and exceedingly fair. . . Ms. Shlaes's book is a breath of fresh air in its unique, individual-level view of the battles that took place during the Great Depression. She lets us walk through that time by letting us see it through the eyes of heroes, victims, naive utopians, evil-doers, the despondent, and the hopeful. The result is a rich, wonderfully original, and extremely textured history of an important time. If you care about markets, the economy, politics, or personal initiative, you will love this book." -- The American Spectator
"Amity Shlaes' new book stands head and shoulders above previous efforts in two profound, insightful ways. First, she brings together a growing body of scholarship to make an absolutely unconventional conclusion. . . Second, Shlaes focuses on key personalities instead of on chronicling the Depression, weaving the story around these fascinating figures." -- Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine
"The finest history of the Great Depression ever written. . . Shlaes's achievement stands out for the devastating effect of its understated prose and for its wide sweep of characters and themes. It deserves to become the preeminent revisionist history for general readers. . . Her narrative sparkles." -- National Review
"An important volume. . . Amity Shlaes has brilliantly assembled a panorama of individuals and events demonstrating the metastasis of the federal system under Democratic control. . . Let's hope that Shlaes's cautionary retrospective on our country's most significant political development in the 20th century will be read and studied widely as the future that Franklin Roosevelt himself feared approaches."
-- Weekly Standard
"A comprehensive history of economic policymaking in the United States during the Great Depression. . . A work of great skill, even brilliance. . . A fun read. . . Entertaining. . . Insightful portraits bring the policy history to life. . . As the 2008 presidential election nears, Shlaes' book will make good bedtime reading. . . The Forgotten Man is history with a point of view. . . The book will be an eye opener."
-- Foreign Affairs
"A skillful, understated corrective to partisan interpretation. . . Shlaes argues persuasively. . . The stories and biographies in this enlightening volume demonstrate that in many areas the New Dealers overreached. The Forgotten Man is an arresting study, filled with vignettes that illustrate important lessons about the relationship between power and liberty. . . . It deserves to be. . . one of the classic popular histories of the era." -- Commentary
"Shlaes makes a powerful case that the real heroes of the day were extraordinary individuals, well known and not so well known, who embodied the American character by aiding and inspiring their fellow citizens in a variety of innovative ways." -- U.S. News & World Report
"Amity Shlaes tells the story of the depression in splendid detail, rich with events and personalities. . . . Many of Shlaes's descriptions make genuinely delightful reading." -- New York Review of Books
"The book of the year: a terrific journalist's insightful, unsentimental look, without blinders, at Franklin D. Roosevelt's mean-spirited onslaught on public utilities, chicken pluckers, and other businessmen that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Depression." -- Robert D. Novak, The American Spectator
"The Forgotten Man is nothing less than an attempt to reclaim the history of the 1930s for the free market. Shlaes is, of course, correct that the New Deal failed to restore economic health." -- The Nation
"Amity Shlaes brings a new evaluation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression, with lessons for our times." -- Washington Times
"A few years ago at our annual Lincoln Dinner, our Congressman at the time, Rep. Chris Cannon, highlighted a few points made by an author with a new view of history about the Great Depression, the New Deal, history, economics, and federal spending. This author, Amity Shlaes, came in person this year and wowed the 450 attendees with her sophisticated tale of journal accounts, statistics, facts, and an academic approach to what really happened then and what is happening now. Let's hope America won't have to learn twice the hard way. Ms. Shlaes has done the research and her writings should not be dismissed. And in fact, must be embraced." -- Taylor Oldroyd, Chair, Utah County Republican Party
"In her talk Amity Shlaes opens the mysterious "black box" surrounding that most perplexing topic--the Great Depression. Mixing charming anecdote with sweeping economic analysis she told us what is vital for policymakers who would "govern" the economy: predictable laws protecting private property, a stable banking system providing capital for creditworthy borrowers, and a non-confiscatory tax system.
She gave me renewed hope: We can work our way out of our current crisis--not through stimulus and other top-down, feel-good programs, but through letting our markets work. I left wanting more. Anyone interested in good economic policy ought to hear what she has to say." -- Greg Bell, Lieutenant Governor of Utah